I also got the message you wrote in the first letters to make us all shiver, too. Wow, good and scary.

Ah, poor Ginny. You get into her head perfectly - wanting to live up to her family and to being a Gryffindor, but being a scared eleven year old with someone stronger in control. Very well done.

I really like the way you describe Ginny’s clear inner resistance to prevent Tom Riddle’s influence on her, even to the point of thinking of all the brave and strong willed things that all of her family members do. It shows just how strong Voldemort was at this point though, as he’s able to forcibly encourage her to continue his dirty work even whilst she’s trying to use (probably) the most important people in her life in order to attempt to withstand him.

It’s easy to feel very sorry for her, particularly in her state of being unsure of where to turn to. It’s easy to forget that she’s still just a child at this point, but you’ve done a great job of making that fairly childlike innocence present - to quote phrases such as “being thrown in Azkaban”, which of course would be ridiculous for an eleven year old girl, but is natural for any child to assume that kind of corporal punishment.

I really like that you brought back Ginny’s character with the swerve of Gryffindor bravery to withstand him, even if it was in vain!

Tom’s dialogue in her conscious was very spot on and in character; suitably devious.

Great story! I thoroughly enjoyed it :)

Sophie xo

It's a good imagining and well told. A couple of the word choices for Tom missed a bit for me, but that is really nit-picking. I enjoyed it: an interesting missing moment. And the acrostic is cool. ;)

Wow. Not my cup of tea, but well done.

Nicely done, as always. Appropriately dark, but I'm not left curled in a ball in the corner.

The dementors are known to be an analog for depression, and Tom's influence makes me think in a similar way of anxiety. The way he takes her thoughts and turns them into a storm of worst-case scenarios, convincing her that everything is going to go horribly wrong no matter what and there's no other possibility.

Since we're told that Ginny has "gaps" in her memory, we assume that she is not conscious during the periods where Tom is exercising control over her, but it's really interesting to see her trying to deal with the possession as it happens, fighting back but being unable to keep her thoughts secret since he is literally in her head.

Good story, my friend :)